A simple call or email urging them to, “Please vote against HB389” Could make a
difference.

Here are VEA’s
concerns regarding the bill:

This year’s Parental
Choice Education Savings Account bill, HB 389, is much broader than last year’s
HB2238. Last year’s bill was narrowly
drawn to students with IEPs, foster children, and military dependents. This year’s bill is open to all students and
will have a much larger, though still indeterminable, fiscal impact. This bill is detrimental to public education,
will lead to inappropriate uses of state funding, and its passage will lead to
unnecessary litigation.

Virginia currently ranks 41st in state support
for public schools. Our teacher salary
is $6,759 below the national average, and we have an existing educational
scholarship/tax credit program which is underutilized. Now is not the time to use additional public
dollars to fund private education.

Lines 82-89 outline broad allowances for usage of the Standards
of Quality (SOQ) funding, but there are no accountability or quality control
provisions in the bill. The
Constitution of Virginia states, “The General Assembly shall determine the
manner in which funds are to be provided
for the cost of maintaining an educational program meeting the prescribed
standards of quality….”
Public schools are required to satisfy accountability provisions –
Standards of Learning (SOL) tests and accreditation standards. This bill requires no accountability for
private schools and home schooling accepting SOQ funding, and these schools
cannot be construed to be part of an “educational program meeting the
prescribed standards of quality.”

The SOQ funds include lottery
proceeds. Article X, Section 7.A. states
that the lottery proceeds are “to be expended for the purposes of public
education.” This raises a Constitutional
question.

It is clear from Article VIII, Section
10, that public dollars cannot go to sectarian schools. The provision allowing for funding of
sectarian institutions, Article VIII, Section 11, clearly refers to higher
education, and there are no Constitutional provisions or case law which support
the use of SOQ funds for sectarian schools.

There are no stipulations regarding family
income. The wealthy have derived
disproportionate benefit from similar programs in other states.

Allowing the funds to be deposited
in Coverdell accounts opens the door to the parents using Standards of Quality
(SOQ) funding to pay for college tuition, not to provide elementary and
secondary education, the purpose of SOQ funds.
This is tuition assistance not available to public school students.

No protection is
offered to parents should a “scholarship foundation” go bankrupt.

Localities bear the
lion share of the responsibility for administering the disbursement, oversight
and auditing of the accounts, but receive no funding. This is an unfunded mandate.

The amount of funding available for students would vary
widely between localities. Students in
Lee County would be eligible for $6,922, while an Arlington student would
receive only $2,135.

Allowing the funding to be used for transportation seems a
wide open door. Could these funds be
used for a car payment on a car used to transport a student to a private
school?